Todd Wilkens pointed me to one of his favorite books, “Elevator Pitch Essentials.” The freebie PDF has been fun to browse — what stuck out the most was this one page, which is missing context, but still makes a ton of sense.

Summary Sentence
The Customer
The Problem
The Pain
The Competition
The Solution
The Features
The Benefits
The Team
The Objective
The Deal
The Technology

 

Specifically the line The Benefits is what I think about a lot these days. It’s easy to get caught in The Features — but features don’t matter if they don’t deliver benefits.

And if they don’t solve The Pain that The Customer has themselves, then you’re done for. The neat upside about having The Competition is that it’s a good signal that you’re at least fishing in the right territory.